A Place to Experiment—with a Little Help from the Pros

Writing music may seem like a solitary job—the work of one individual turning imagined sounds into notes on a page. 

But, delivering a piece of music from a composer’s brain to the audience’s ears is a highly collaborative process. Workshopping the score with musicians, incorporating their feedback, revising the piece, revising it again, then fine-tuning it for performance all must occur long before the composition is ever played live onstage. And for this, composers need ensembles.

A successful composition depends not only on the quality of the work as written but also, crucially, on the composer’s ability to communicate with musicians throughout the creative process. To that end, Boston Conservatory at Berklee premieres roughly 180 student compositions each year, giving composers ample practice not just in writing but in advocating for their work and guiding musicians to its truest possible interpretation. While the majority of these premieres are performed by student ensembles (such as Boston Conservatory’s Composers Orchestra led by world-renowned conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni), many are played by professional artists in residence at the Conservatory. 

“This is a place to experiment and to grow, and that includes bringing in guest artists. … We want these [degree programs] to be kind of ‘sandbox style.’ Students are trying lots and lots of stuff—they’re playing around.”

—Mischa Salkind-Pearl

Every semester, accomplished chamber groups visit Boston Conservatory’s campus, working alongside student composers to prepare new pieces for concert premieres—and attendant live recordings that composers may add to their portfolios. Steeped in contemporary classical music practices, these pro ensembles bring deep expertise and an explorative spirit to their collaborations with students. 

“This is a place to experiment and to grow, and that includes bringing in guest artists,” says Mischa Salkind-Pearl, chair of composition, contemporary classical music, and core studies. The Conservatory chooses visiting ensembles not just for their stellar reputations in the professional world, he says, but for their willingness to collaborate with students in pursuit of musical self-expression. “The whole composition degree program, both the bachelor’s and the graduate programs, we want these to be kind of ‘sandbox style.’ Students are trying lots and lots of stuff—they’re playing around.”

Over the past year, the Conservatory hosted residencies with Momenta String Quartet(Opens in a new window) and bassoonist Adrian Morejon(Opens in a new window) in December 2024, the violin/viola duo andPlay(Opens in a new window) in February 2024, and Hinge Quartet(Opens in a new window), whose residency has been ongoing throughout the academic year and will culminate in a performance of students works on April 12. For students, these engagements strike a unique balance, Salkind-Pearl says. Yes, pro ensembles have vast expertise to share, but each individual composer is the expert on their own work, and must learn to accept meaningful feedback—and reshape the work for the better—while giving directives with authority. 

“When [students] work with a group like the Momenta String Quartet—which is a really esteemed group—they are working with professionals. But, creatively speaking, they’re working as peers and, at the same time, recognizing Momenta’s years and years of experience.”

Imagination, Played Out Loud

Writing for well-established contemporary classical groups helps student composers expand their creative toolkits, incorporating extended technique and providing unique sounds and textures to experiment with. Composition major Barret Allen (BM '25) says their collaboration with the ensemble in residence Hinge Quartet (whose members include three Boston Conservatory faculty members) has resulted in music that could not otherwise have been written. 

During a score workshop last fall, Allen was struggling to find precisely the right multiphonic sound for a saxophone part in a new piece they were writing, “SCISSION FIELD,”  and asked Hinge’s sax player, faculty member Philipp Stäudlin, to help with a solution. “I gave him three descriptors. I said, ‘high register, distant, ghostly,’ and then he played stuff on his saxophone that he thought might fit that sort of character,” Allen says. “He was just tooting away on his horn, and I was like, ‘That’s it!’” 

Working with Hinge has given Allen a sense of assurance that whatever they’re hearing in their imagination can be played out loud. “These professional ensembles—they can just do everything,” Allen says. “I already know if it exists on the saxophone, Philipp has done it before.”

As part of the group’s residency, Hinge Quartet conducted four workshops on composing for each individual instrument in the ensemble—piano, percussion, electric guitar, and saxophone. Allen and fellow composer Manuela Cardona (BM '26) both get a bit wide-eyed when talking about the opportunity: from hearing guitarist Dan VanHassel’s various pedal effects on guitar to learning about vibraphone articulation from percussionist Matt Sharrock. The performers also gave extensive instructions on how to notate these details in a score, and were accessible via email to answer questions from students. VanHassel and Sharrock serve on Boston Conservatory’s faculty, and their compositional guidance carried over into coursework with students, Cardona says, adding, “We never get that as composers in the real world.” 

Learning how to utilize the unique qualities of each Hinge player made her composition, “Tomorrow Night I'll Rest,” all the richer. “Each instrument has its own separate capabilities, and each musician does, too. So we can actually write very idiomatically, for each person,” she says. “I think that's my favorite thing now, just making things especially for the performer.”

“It felt like they were reading my mind”

Until an ensemble interprets their score, a composer cannot know for sure if they’ve accurately notated the sounds of their imagination. This is particularly true for student composer Phoenix Geyser (BM '27), who likes to use graphic elements—hand-drawn images and symbols—in her scores. 

In fall 2024, Geyser composed a new work, “still rain and statue,” specifically for Momenta Quartet and bassoonist Adrian Morejon to be performed during their December residency at Boston Conservatory. Geyser says it was her most experimental piece to date, incorporating bassoon multiphonics meant to sound like a faraway siren, and extended bowing technique for strings, to evoke the creaking of a ship. 

“It was scary to write this on the page and have no idea if it was going to sound the way I imagined,” says Geyser, though she was optimistic that Momenta and Morejon would be able to work through the piece in rehearsal, given their skill and experience with graphic notation. To Geyser’s astonishment, they played it correctly on the very first attempt. “Somehow it felt like they were reading my mind,” she says, “even though I gave them a score that said what I wanted them to do.”

For the rest of her allotted rehearsal time, Geyser worked with the ensemble to refine dynamics. Hearing the finished piece live in concert blew her away, she says. “[It] was the first time that I had a performance that was completely accurate to how I wanted something to sound.”

Hinge Quartet will perform works by Boston Conservatory student composers on April 12 at 4:00 p.m. Learn more about the concert, and explore the Conservatory’s composition degree programs.